Modeling Medicare Premiums

ProjectionLab automatically adds Medicare to your plan as an expense and estimates your premiums once you reach eligibility age. This article walks through where it shows up, what’s calculated automatically, and what you can adjust.

Where Medicare Shows Up in Your Plan

If you’re building a new plan from scratch, you’ll move through Milestones, then Income, then Flows on your way to Expenses. Medicare appears automatically, you won’t need to manually add it. Once you reach the Expenses section, Medicare shows up as its own line item, and ProjectionLab assumes you’ll enroll the month you turn 65.

If you’re planning as a couple, each person gets their own Medicare expense, labeled Medicare Premiums: [First Name]. A plan for Ashley and Jordan will show separate entries for Medicare Premiums: Ashley and Medicare Premiums: Jordan, calculated independently.

What’s Filled In Automatically

Click into a Medicare expense to see:

• Eligibility Date – the first day of the month you turn 65, calculated from your birth date. If Ashley was born in January 1990, her Eligibility Date is January 2055.
• Part B Premium – the standard monthly Medicare premium, currently $202.90. This is pre-filled but can be overridden in Advanced Settings.
• Part D Premium – the base drug plan premium, defaulted to $39/month. Unlike Part B, this field is open to edit directly with your own estimate.

Based on these inputs, ProjectionLab calculates an Estimated Annual Cost covering premiums only, before any IRMAA surcharge. With the defaults, that comes to about $2,903/year for a single enrollee, and updates automatically as you adjust the inputs.

Choosing Supplemental Coverage

After reviewing the auto-filled fields, choose a Supplemental Type:

• None – original Medicare only, with no supplemental coverage. No additional fields appear.
• Medigap – covers co-pays, coinsurance, and deductibles under original Medicare.
• Medicare Advantage – bundles Parts A, B, and often D into one plan, typically with network restrictions.

If you choose Medigap or Medicare Advantage, a Supplemental Premium field appears where you’ll enter that plan’s monthly cost.

Advanced Settings

A few additional settings give you more control:

• Override Enrollment Date – choose your own enrollment month and year instead of the default (the month you turn 65).
• Override Part B Premium – use a different base premium than the $202.90 default.
• Part A Premium – usually $0 with 40 or more quarters of work history. If yours isn’t $0, enter your actual amount here.
• Medical Inflation Modifier – defaults to 2% above your plan’s inflation rate. Healthcare costs have historically outpaced general inflation, but you can adjust this to match your own assumption.

Once you’re done, click Save.

Medicare at a Glance

IRMAA adds Part B and Part D surcharges for higher earners above $109,000 (single) or $218,000 (joint), based on income from two years prior. Roth conversions, capital gains, and municipal bond interest all count toward IRMAA income. For current premium and cost details, see Medicare Costs on Medicare.gov.

Viewing Medicare in Your Plan

To see Medicare costs alongside the rest of your plan, go to Plan, then click the dropdown above the graph and choose Spending. Medicare appears with your other expenses as a bar chart.

A medical cross icon marks the first year Medicare begins for each person. Hover over it to see the starting annual cost for that person.

To the right of the graph, click Spending > Essential to see each person’s Medicare premiums broken out individually. Hovering over the Medicare portion of any bar shows the annual cost, monthly premium, and months of coverage for that year.